The rain this weekend had torpedoed some of my more ambitious video plans that I had in mind. I was feeling frustrated, so I went for a walk and remembered this playground I had found a few weeks back…but completely forgotten about.

I resolved to record whatever I did there, even if it was wet. Worst case I would see if I could make my hoodie into a ghetto rain shield for my camera. I got lucky though, the rain had stopped. Everything was super slick, but I was already there…why not see what I could come up with?

The answer? A whole lot.

That’s enough typing, here’s the playlist of what I came up with. I cut some extraneous bits out, but it’s otherwise almost everything. I was experimenting with recording in 1080i, which I have to say I’m not that happy with. The lighting is better, but my laptop nearly died in the line of duty trying to edit then encode all that video.

Head over here

If you’re getting this by email, click here to see the videos.

I think it worked out awesomely well in the end. How about you?

Remember that quest thing?

First off, I just finished up a big update to my About page. It was looking real old and needed a facelift with the other changes around here (like the new banner). That’s the first of my big re-writes done, and I have plenty more to do as I look through the content I’ve already written. Stuff that’s about a year old now is starting to look embarrassingly bad. I think that’s a good sign, since it means my writing has improved at least. ;)

So I have an announcement.

I booked a flight a one-way flight to Madrid for April 15th. No matter what happens with the visa for Belgium I am getting on that plane. Sidebar: Total cost? $64. I love travel hacking. That’s cheaper than my flight to Denver from DC…

April 5th will mark the eight month of waiting for that visa with little to no way of knowing when or if I’m going to get it. The optimistic side of me has been patiently waiting, expecting it to happen. Patience only goes so far.

I feel like I’ve had to leave much of my life on pause while waiting, and I’m tired of it. I have a couple of alternative paths into legally running my little project in Europe, and if Brussels doesn’t make a decision by April 14th (that’d be a hell of a red-eye flight to Atlanta) I’ll pursue those instead. The paths are not as clearly lit, but that’s okay, I’ll figure it out.

With this decision the Quest shall properly commence on April 25th**. I’ve created a specific page for it here, including the listing of 75 cities I have in mind. The list isn’t set in stone yet, but I’m happy with the diversity of it. Due to not knowing which city I might end up in initially I’ve decided to begin in Iceland. I have some friends converging on the place for a gaming event, so I figure it’s a good enough excuse to head over there, this time without snow on the ground for once.

Someone might even feed me hakarl this time. If I die in Iceland, you know what happened.